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There's a partner who is domiciled on my floor at work; he's recently returned to the US after many years working in Europe. He arranged for a television and a basic cable feed to be installed in one of the conference rooms, and today I was able to get in there to watch Brazil – Japan with my colleagues RE, who is Bolivian, and RR, who is ethnic Indian but grew up in Zambia… and periodically we were joined by the partner's exec assistant, who is also Bolivian.

Anyway, I thought I was going to wet myself when Japan scored, but it's just as well I didn't. Not only did I not have any spare trousers, but Ronaldo set things straight for me… But I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the "Ni-hon! Ni-hon!" chant from the crowd and the distinct drop off in forced samba-fan activities.

Brazil definitely showed some spark today, but partly that was due to the Japanese starting to open up space when they fell behind and relaxed their tight discipline and short passing, in order to try and force a quick counter attack. Of all of the goals I think I liked Gilberto's goal the best because of the quick movement in from the wing, and the way that his approach to setting to take the kick involved no more than slowing down for a couple of steps before applying the boot.

In the meantime Australia and Croatia were kicking lumps out of one another and I am pleased that the Socceroos are through. Why, you ask? Well, I'm going to revisit today's Fiver from the Guardian:

Of the handful of totally incompetent teams at the World Cup, God Bless America is the one the Fiver likes best. Because it was Bruce Arena's butcher boys who put Point 1 of the Fiver's Football Manifesto into practice. To wit: "Since the merest whiff of contact will cause Italians to hurl themselves to the ground claiming to have been brutally fouled, you might as well brutally foul them. Constantly."

I am thoroughly looking forward to seeing the Aussies kick the Italians off the park. I nearly puked when I saw highlights of the Italy – Czech Republic game and there was that little f*cker Pippo Inzaghi showing the world that an incontinent geriatric spaniel has a better grasp of the offside rule… and then he scored! Argh!

So here's hoping that someone gets all Aussie-rules on Pippo and kicks him over the cross-bars, over the head of a man wearing a funny white hat who makes Crouch-like Roboto gestures to indicate that some number of points have been scored.

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I love the rugby reference. With their flair for the dramatic I’m surprised that the Italians don’t break out in song every time they are fouled. Maybe a little La Bohemme when she dies seems fitting.

As for the fouls, I feel like I’m watching the 2006 version of Poltergeist with all the phantom calls I’m seeing. of course it doesn’t help when Freddy Ado on yesterdays PTI said that as a offensive player he thought it was a foul.

Thanks Freddy, in your free time do you hang out with the heads of MLB and the NFL and discuss other ways to increase offensive production like shrinking the strike zone or making the “D” linemen count to 5 Mississippi before rushing the the QB. Maybe we should just take the goalie out of the game and watch the long range booming kicks sail towards the net like a Doug Flutie pass or better yet a Flutie drop kick.